On bar terraces, glasses of Coca-Cola with ice and lemon. At local festivals, coolers full of bottles of this soft drink. In the stands of Camp Nou, on La Rambla, or in a small family-run mountain restaurant, the same scene repeats itself: an open bottle, escaping gas, and an everyday gesture that has been part of the Catalan social landscape for decades. But what would happen if, suddenly, Coca-Cola disappeared from Catalonia?

Coca-Cola bottler Europacific Partners (CCEP) announced this Wednesday an increase in sales and profits for the first six months of this year, but the improved results have not prevented the company's shares from plummeting on the Spanish stock market.

US President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Coca-Cola is agreeing to use real cane sugar in its products in the United States. "I have been talking to Coca-Cola about using real cane sugar in Coca-Cola in the United States and they have agreed to introduce it," the Republican leader said on his social media platform, Truth Social, where he thanked company officials for the decision.

Consumption of ready-to-drink tea (ready-to-drink, RTD) is booming in Catalonia. Proof of this is that in the first eight weeks of 2025, this beverage category has grown 4.1% in value and 4.6% in liters consumed compared to the same period last year, according to the data analysis company Nielsen. The category's strong performance comes just this year, as Coca-Cola has made Fuze Tea its only ready-to-drink tea brand, offering a blend of tea, fruits, and herbs without gas, ideal for drinking cold.

Coca-Cola bottler Europacific Partners, chaired by Sol Daurella, obtained a net profit of 1,444 million euros in 2024, which represents a decrease of 13.5% compared to the previous year, the multinational reported to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) on Friday. This decrease occurs despite the fact that it obtained revenues of 20,438 million euros, 11.4% more, but the drop in profits is mainly due to high restructuring costs (264 million) and amortization of some of its equipment.

The former president of Planeta José Manuel Lara Bosch used to lament that Catalan companies often preferred to be "herring's head rather than hake's tail", that is, owning a small company rather than being part of a large corporation if they had to share control. But there are exceptions, and the Daurella family is one. In the last decade, the Cobega group (owned by this family) has gone from being a mere Spanish bottler of Coca-Cola to the largest shareholder of Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), the main bottler of this soft drink in the world. This expansion, moreover, is now experiencing a new leap forward with the more than likely purchase of Amatil, the company that bottles and distributes Coca-Cola in six countries, including Australia, New Zealand and, above all, an often ignored giant: Indonesia